Each year in the United States alone, untold numbers of people develop precancerous lesions, which is a form of neoplasia, as discussed below. Such lesions exhibit a strong tendency to develop into malignant tumors, or cancer. Such lesions include lesions of the breast (that can develop into breast cancer), lesions of the skin (that can develop into malignant melanoma or basal cell carcinoma), colonic adenomatous polyps (that can develop into colon cancer), and other such neoplasms. Compounds that prevent or induce the remission of existing precancerous or cancerous lesions or carcinomas would greatly reduce illness and death from cancer.
For example, approximately 60,000 people die from colon cancer, and over 150,000 new cases of colon cancer are diagnosed each year. For the American population as a whole, individuals have a six percent lifetime risk of developing colon cancer, making it the second most prevalent form of cancer in the country. Colon cancer is also prevalent in Western Europe. It is believed that increased dietary fat consumption is increasing the risk of colon cancer in Japan.
In addition, the incidence of colon cancer reportedly increases with age, particularly after the age of 40. Since the mean ages of populations in America and Western Europe are increasing, the prevalence of colorectal cancer should increase in the future.
To date, little progress has been made in the prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer, as reflected by the lack of change in the five-year survival rate over the last few decades. The only cure for this cancer is surgery at an extremely early stage. Unfortunately, most of these cancers are discovered too late for surgical cure. In many cases, the patient does not experience symptoms until the cancer has progressed to a malignant stage.
In view of these grim statistics, efforts in recent years have concentrated on colon cancer prevention. Colon cancer usually arises from pre-existing benign neoplastic growths known as polyps. Prevention efforts have emphasized the identification and removal of colonic polyps. Polyps are identified by x-ray and/or colonoscopy, and usually removed by devices associated with the colonoscope. The increased use of colon x-rays and colonoscopies in recent years has detected clinically significant precancerous polyps in four to six times the number of individuals per year that acquire colon cancer. During the past five years alone, an estimated 3.5 to 5.5 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with adenomatous colonic polyps, and it is estimated that many more people have or are susceptible to developing this condition, but are as yet undiagnosed. In fact, there are estimates that 10-12 percent of people over the age of 40 will form clinically significant adenomatous polyps.
Removal of polyps has been accomplished either with surgery or fiber-optic endoscopic polypectomy--procedures that are uncomfortable, costly (the cost of a single polypectomy ranges between $1,000 and $1,500 for endoscopic treatment and more for surgery), and involve a small but significant risk of colon perforation. Overall, about $2.5 billion is spent annually in the United States in colon cancer treatment and prevention.
In the breast, breast cancer is often treated surgically, often by radical mastectomy with its painful aftermath. Such surgery is costly, too.
As indicated above, each lesion carries with it a chance that it will develop into a cancer. The likelihood of cancer is diminished if a precancerous lesion is removed. However, many of these patients demonstrate a propensity for developing additional lesions in the future. They must, therefore, be monitored periodically for the rest of their lives for reoccurrence.
In most cases (i.e. the cases of sporadic lesion formation, e.g. so-called common sporadic polyps), lesion removal will be effective to reduce the risk of cancer. In a small percentage of cases (i.e. cases where numerous lesions form, e.g. the so-called polyposis syndromes), removal of all or part of the effected area (e.g. the colon) is indicated. For example, the difference between common sporadic polyps and polyposis syndromes is dramatic. Common sporadic polyp cases are characterized by relatively few polyps which can usually be removed leaving the colon intact. By contrast, polyposis syndrome cases can be characterized by many (e.g. hundreds or more) of polyps--literally covering the colon in some cases--making safe removal of the polyps impossible short of surgical removal of the colon.
Because each lesion carries with it a palpable risk of cancerous development, patients who form many lesions (e.g. polyposis syndrome patients) invariably develop cancer if left untreated. Surgical removal of the colon is the conventional treatment in polyposis patients. Many polyposis patients have undergone a severe change in lifestyle as a result of the disfiguring surgery. Patients have strict dietary restrictions, and many must wear ostomy appliances to collect their intestinal wastes.
The search for drugs useful for treating and preventing cancer is intensive. Indeed, much of the focus of cancer research today is on the prevention of cancer because chemotherapy for cancer itself is often not effective and has severe side effects. Cancer chemoprevention is important for recovered cancer patients who retain a risk of cancer reoccurrence. Also, cancer prevention is important for people who have not yet had cancer, but have hereditary factors that place them at risk of developing cancer. With the development of new genetic screening technologies, it is easier to identify those patients with high-risk genetic factors, such as the potential for polyposis syndrome, who would greatly benefit from chemopreventative drugs. Therefore, finding such anti-cancer drugs that can be used for prolonged preventive use is of vital interest.
Known chemopreventative and chemotherapeutic drugs are believed to kill cancer cells by inducing apoptosis, sometimes referred to as "programmed cell death." Apoptosis naturally occurs in virtually all tissues of the body, and especially in self-renewing tissues such as bone marrow, immune cells, gut, liver and skin. Apoptosis plays a critical role in tissue homeostasis, that is, it ensures that the number of new cells produced are correspondingly offset by an equal number of cells that die. For example, the cells in the intestinal lining divide so rapidly that the body must eliminate cells after only three days in order to prevent the overgrowth of the intestinal lining.
Recently, scientists have realized that abnormalities of apoptosis can lead to the formation of precancerous lesions and carcinomas. Also, recent research indicates that defects in apoptosis play a major role in other diseases in addition to cancer. Consequently, compounds that modulate apoptosis could be used to prevent or control cancer, as well as used in the treatment of other diseases.
Unfortunately, even though known chemotherapeutic drugs may exhibit such desirable apoptosis effects, most chemotherapeutic drugs have serious side effects that prohibit their long-term use, or use in otherwise healthy individuals with precancerous lesions. These side effects, which are a result of the high levels of cytotoxicity of the drugs, include hair loss, weight loss, vomiting, immune suppression and other toxicities. Therefore, there is a need to identify new drug candidates for therapy that do not have such serious side effects in humans.
In recent years, several non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs ("NSAIDs"), originally developed to treat arthritis, have shown effectiveness in inhibiting and eliminating colonic polyps. Polyps virtually disappear when the patients take the drug, particularly when the NSAID sulindac is administered. However, the prophylactic use of currently available NSAIDs, even in polyposis syndrome patients, is marked by severe side reactions that include gastrointestinal irritations, perforations, ulcerations and kidney toxicity. Once NSAID treatment is terminated due to such complications, the polyps return, particularly in polyposis syndrome patients.
Sulindac has been particularly well received among the NSAIDs for polyp treatment. Sulindac is a sulfoxide compound that itself is believed to be inactive as an anti-arthritic agent. The sulfoxide is reportedly converted by liver enzymes to the corresponding sulfide, which is acknowledged to be the active moiety as a prostaglandin synthesis inhibitor. The sulfide, however, is associated with the side effects of conventional NSAIDs. The sulfoxide is also known to be metabolized to a sulfone compound that has been found to be inactive as an inhibitor of prostaglandin synthesis but active as an inhibitor of precancerous lesions.